


I'm a Yamanaka, aren't I?

by Sersi



Category: Naruto
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Other, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-15
Updated: 2017-11-15
Packaged: 2019-02-02 12:11:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12726396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sersi/pseuds/Sersi
Summary: Inojin Yamanaka doesn't understand his role as a member of the Yamanaka Clan. Miscellaneous adventures about everyone's favorite flower boy.





	I'm a Yamanaka, aren't I?

“Inojin, being able to transmit messages through the mind is an empowering way to find your center on the battlefield.” Ino recalled the words of her late father, placing her hands on her hips as she spoke to her son, smiling at him with a dejected look that curled at the corners of her lips. 

“Being able to feel the intensity of your teammates and their hearts will make you stronger. This is a technique passed down in our Clan. An ability that will make you a better ninja.”

The young Yamanaka canted his head to the side as he listened to his mother, closing his eyes and pressing an index finger against the dip in his temple. “Isn’t this a little excessive?” The younger blond placed his hand at his side, looking at his mother with his eerily similar, glassy blues. 

“How am I supposed to master sending someone’s thoughts to another person?” 

Ino’s eyes were half-lidded as she glanced down at her son. She remembered her time as a child spent avoiding her father and learning the secret technique. 

She even began working under Tsunade instead of her father and in more recent times she’s grown to regret it. The chakra control she learned from Tsunade helped her achieve the next level of her abilities but she’d missed out on some of the most important tidbits of her secret technique because she took for granted the time she had with her father. 

She didn’t think she’d lose him. 

Not as suddenly as she did during the fourth war. 

The young woman folded her arms beneath her bosom as she stared at her son. He took after her but he still had his father’s energy. Sai’s skin color wasn’t the only thing that Inojin inherited, though most people argued otherwise. 

And sometimes, at the right angle with a turn of her head, she seen her father in him.

In Inojin Yamanaka, the intensity, compassion and determination of Inoichi was growing. 

She wanted to cherish these fleeting moments with her son and build him up to be as strong as his grandfather. 

Ino wanted to raise the next leader of the Ino-Shika-Cho to be stronger than she was. His pique in maturity would be good for both of them. For Inojin, he would become the perfect member of the secret formation of the Leaf. For Ino, she will have reached her full potential as a mother. She’ll have achieved everything that her father wanted for her. 

Not realizing that she’d been standing there staring at her son, Inojin took this time to bring it up. 

“You’re staring at me.” He stated dully as he brought his hand up to palm at the nape of his neck, hooding his eyes with long, yellowy lashes. “You always stare at me.”

Ino snapped out of her thoughts and looked down at her son. 

“Right.” She cleared her throat, flicking her bangs out of her face. “In order to send someone’s thoughts to another person, you form a telepathic link. You have to control your chakra to keep the link connected between the designated communicators. You can use it to talk to other people. Your grandfather used it to bother me.” She said with a small smile. Little things she considered ‘irritating’ were things she missed now that her father was gone. 

She’d give anything to have another ‘irritating’ moment with him. 

“How can chakra connect minds?” Inojin asked with a brow arched. 

Ino smiled at her son. “We specialize in mind-related techniques. These abilities are special to our Clan. With transmission techniques, we can use our chakra to relay messages to others. This doesn’t just include our thoughts but our imagery, too.” 

Inojin frowned as he looked down at his sandals. “Difficult.” He kicked at the dirt. 

“Very.” Ino wasn’t going to pull punches, or tell her son that this was going to be easy. “The more people connected, the more strain is put on the user. In other words, to relay these messages on a wide scale, you have to be ready for the consequences. In most cases, your nose will bleed.”

The younger blond puffed his cheeks out as he looked up at his mother. She blinked once or twice at the familiar expression on his face. An expression she’d made many times in the past. “Come on, Inojin. You want to be a stronger component of your formation, don’t you?”

Inojin closed his eyes, brow knitting as he tipped his head down. “I feel like I’m the only one training this hard.”

Ino’s eyes widened. She brought a hand up to tuck a few stray strands of blonde hair behind an ear. She’d said those exact words to her father. In the very same place. In front of the stone the formation’s oath was etched into. 

The older Yamanaka smiled down at her son with a smile that expressed her pain and happiness meshing into a single emotion.

“You might be. The Yamanaka is the glue that holds the team together. You are the leader.”

Inojin looked at his mother with a glint of disbelief in his eyes. “I’m...what?”

“You are going to be a member of the intelligence division, Inojin. We are the brains of the village. Your responsibilities do not begin or end in the formation. You are the 17th generation of the Ino-Shika-Cho. Wear that with pride.” Ino smiled at her son.

As a result, Inojin smiled with his eyes closed and flicked at one of the ring earrings in his lobe. 

“Your earrings are a symbol of our oath. The weight that they bare on your ears are like a reminder for you. Never forget that you are apart of an important group. The village relies on you. On us. And you are just as valuable as your friends. The son of the Hokage, the daughter of the Uchiha. You are Inojin Yamanaka. And I never want you to feel like you aren’t crucial.”

Inojin blinked back the water welling in his eyes. 

“I used my abilities to relay messages during the fourth war. I ensured that our alliance could win. And in the result of another catastrophic emergency like that, I want you to be able to do the same.”

“Kaasan…”

“You’re my baby boy, Inojin.” Ino flicked her index finger beneath an eye. She was getting teary eyed, too. ‘You’re my baby, and you’re everything I wanted you to be.”

* * *

After many months of trying, crying and begging God to give her this boy, Sai and Ino were allowed to conceive. She spent months in front of a toilet, vomiting and hating her body that wouldn’t allow her to create new life. 

Months into her pregnancy with Inojin, she told Sai that this baby was going to live to term.

He was going to live, and she was going to teach him everything she didn’t want to learn from her father. Their secret ninjutsu, the lessons she thought were mindless rambling, and the selfless ideology she wanted to emulate. 

Having read a lot of books regarding pregnancies and raising a child, Sai gave her the utmost support in their trying time and assured her that he’d be there every step of the way.

Inojin was born in December.

* * *

“Kaasan…”

“My baby. And I want you to learn everything that our Clan has to offer. We’re not just the ‘flower people’ or the ‘blond people’ we are more than that. You are more than that.” 

Ino closed her eyes, brushing hair off of her face with thumb and index finger. “Here. I’ll allow you to take notes. We’re going to get this jutsu down and we’ll be able to move onto the second, third and the fourth.”

Inojin used his forearm and the wooly fabric of his sweatshirt to wipe his eyes, smiling at his mother with a pink nose and cheeks. 

“Yes ma’am!”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Rated-E, episodic story with lighthearted themes.


End file.
